Powder prices? Seriously?????

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hardheart said:
This is a panic,
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OK, then we are in agreement, basically. Panic buying, for whatever reason, usually results in empty store shelves... there is no two ways about it.

George P said:
Never disagreed with you; those inventory taxes are one reason that Sparks, NV became the major warehouse distribution area for the West Coast - CA taxes are too high.
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Same with Las Vegas, and, now Laughlin, NV is starting to build warehousing.
 
I had a list of pistol powders I wanted to try out. I put all of them in my wishlist at Midway and just kept checking it a few times a day. It took a week or two for all to be in stock at the same time. Click Click Click Click and all were shipped with one hazmat fee. My experience is that powder may be short if you're just walking into a brick and mortar store, but they go in/out of stock online quite frequently. Usually the one pounders are available frequently. A few small shops around me are fairly well stocked (many powders to choose from, but maybe only 1 to 3 lbs of each variety). I haven't seen many larger powder jugs other than the 1 lb bottles.

I scored primers the same way. Got 10K of SPP to split between me and a new reloader friend. Took about two weeks of checking. Just a random check at lunchtime one day and Jackpot! I should have bought a lottery ticket, too.

I think we are at a point where many experienced reloaders are just topping off their supplies to a comfortable level, or they only have a few critical holes that need to be filled. With the winter coming, half the country will slow down their shooting. Supplies will start to come back and stay in stock longer online (powder and bullets are already easier to find than a few month ago). By the spring, what once took weeks or months of searching to find may only take days to find online.

Barring another political trigger, I predict factory loaded ammo will take a little longer, perhaps another year to come back to where you can walk into a store and at least find a box or two of popular calibers on the shelf. Shortly thereafter, the sales and rebates will begin again. When the rebates hit and I can buy it cheaper than I can reload it, that's when I'll buy more factory ammo. Gotta keep those new ammo machines running and those people employed through the surplus years, you know.
 
Hodgdon is selling factory direct shipping. Expect to pay suggested list. If they don't have any of what you are looking for expect to be put on a waiting list. Of course then there will also be hazmat and shipping costs. It might be worth for a bunch of people or a club to put in one big order and split the shipping and hazmat fees.
I walked into my favorite gun shop and they just happened to have a small quantity of small pistol Match primers, which I don't normally use. I bought them just the same at $55.00/m and so I'm good for a while.
With the worst anti-gun vice president elect, maybe 4 more years.
 
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Those of us who remember Obamascare I and II (which wasn't that long ago) remember standing in lines to get into Sportsman's/Cabelas/Sheels/whatever to get our token box of .22LR or maybe a pound of powder if you were lucky. Sheel's had a coded system for showing which powder was in stock; they had empty bottles of all their powders displayed, with little red tags on the powders that were sold out and if you were very lucky, tags on the one or two powders that came in that day, and you might be lucky enough to find a pound. They broke down all primer bricks to 100 count packets and limited you to one per day... if they had them. I made semi-weekly runs to three or more stores looking for powder and primers. I expect it will be similar for a while. People are in hardcore panic mode and as K wisely said, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it."
 
Lots of talk about Varget. The last pound I bought was at Walmart a couple of months ago. That day the shelf had over 10 kinds of powder.
 
WeekendReloader said:
I think we are at a point where many experienced reloaders are just topping off their supplies to a comfortable level, or they only have a few critical holes that need to be filled. With the winter coming, half the country will slow down their shooting. Supplies will start to come back and stay in stock longer online (powder and bullets are already easier to find than a few month ago). By the spring, what once took weeks or months of searching to find may only take days to find online.

Barring another political trigger, I predict factory loaded ammo will take a little longer, perhaps another year to come back to where you can walk into a store and at least find a box or two of popular calibers on the shelf. Shortly thereafter, the sales and rebates will begin again. When the rebates hit and I can buy it cheaper than I can reload it, that's when I'll buy more factory ammo. Gotta keep those new ammo machines running and those people employed through the surplus years, you know.
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I think that these two markets are so closely related that they don't really move independently. So as long as loaded factory ammo is scarce, components will be, too. Scarce factory ammo means the OEMs won't be eager to divert components away from their production lines. Scarce factory ammo also means that you will see a growing level of interest in and actively buying components for reloading.

As for a lack of a political trigger, I think we can safely assume that the incoming will provide a number of them.
 
Sniper66 said:
I know we have a serious panic going on, but I'm stunned and frightened...yes, frightened. I started looking for some powder today since I'm running low on Varget. None of the suppliers have any. NO ONE!! GunBroker has it for over $100 per pound! Last pound I bought was $32 and I was annoyed by that price. Found an #8 pounder on GunBroker for $825. Where in the name of h*** is the powder going? The manufacturers (I think) are making it as fast as they can do so safely. These prices will put most people out of the reloading business, including me. I'll have enough to make my hunting rounds for a few years, but forget target practice. Has anyone found any powder in a retail store in the last month? Is there any help out there??
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I've found Blue Dot, Red Dot, Unique and Bullseye - my favorite handgun powders - online from my usual suppliers and they haven't hiked prices but I did have to wait a little longer for shipping. For rifles powders, check with Midway regularly, and create a notification for what you want. I bought 3031 and 4064 recently from them by putting it on the "notify me" list - when the robot sends you an email, go online and buy then, not tomorrow.
 
It's funny how notifications work for powder, but not for primers.
I get a powder notification, and the powder stays in stock for a while (sometimes days).
Most times primers sell out before notifications are even sent. If I do get one, they are already sold out by the time I click on the link.

I found a family-owned, not so local gun and archery shop (about 45 mins away) stays fairly well stocked. Powder is about $5 a pound higher than online, but no hazmat and no shipping. The shop is located in a different county, with a more rural and blue collar population. The customers there tend to buy what they need and go on with their lives without the panic drama. Factory ammo was stripped off the shelves by all the city folk going out there, but reloading supplies (all except primers) were available.
 
I ordered 20lb of Vihtavuori N530 last week that happened to be in stock at Powder Valley. Vihtavuori is always expensive and the price was the typical going rate.
 
I have found, just as in the last shortage, my stock of "random" stuff has increased. Found a few estate sale cans, some leftovers from a sporting goods store that have been through a few panic price gouges judging by the old stickers (the new owner was much more sensible about selling in a bundle to move as he no longer stocks reloading components). I still have some bread and butter in quantity, but now have lots of fun stuff to experiment with. Was fortunate enough to find some unique at a LGS the other day. You better believe I bought that! Even left 3 cans for the next guy.

My strategy to last the lean times is working. Keep enough first line stock to hunt and shoot matches, use up and acquire random stuff for...well...random stuff. I've got a good arsenal of odd duck rifles that are pretty versatile for component selection. I've long since sworn off super popular foreign made powders such as Varget, the R series and most of the Accurate and Ramshot equivalents. General Dynamics and St Marks seem to have better surge capacity. This too shall pass, just be flexible and versatile. You might not be able to do mag dumps of 5.56 or .223, but .38 Cast, .311, 8mm are still well and good available as well as powders suitable for slinging such lead. So long as your primers hold out, things will be fine.
 
Put myself on Midway's Notification List; got an email today and scored 8# of TiteWad; price was reasonable at $143 - $170 total with shipping and hazmat
 
George P said:
Put myself on Midway's Notification List; got an email today and scored 8# of TiteWad; price was reasonable at $143 - $170 total with shipping and hazmat
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I play with tightgroup a lot and I think tightwad is even faster. Is this a powder you normally use or something your going to try...
 
AJC1 said:
I play with tightgroup a lot and I think tightwad is even faster. Is this a powder you normally use or something your going to try...
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I use it for loading 3/4oz 12 gauge target loads; 3/4oz gives me 533 loads from a bag of shot and they will break most normal sporting, 5-stand, trap and skeet targets easily enough
I have 4# of Titegroup for pistols, along with Bullseye and Universal
 
Following suggestions from your posts, I made the rounds of some gun stores and came away with a lb of CFE 223 and a lb of Benchmark. Today I'm trading the CFE 223 for a lb of Varget. Sheel's in KC had just received a large shipment of Berry's Bullets, but nothing else. Otherwise the shelves were stripped bare. Looked like a Russian grocery store. The guy at Cabela's said his wholesalers are telling him it won't get any better until late next year.
 
LNK said:
We're it your business, would you go to the expense of adding machinery and employees for this temporary surge in demand? Me neither. At the end of the day, they have to do what's best for their business. As would I, and you probably as well.
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It saddens me greatly to say, your analysis is absolutely correct - for a free market economy. The United States is no longer a free market economy. We are a bureaucratically-regulated, mob-manipulated economy. This is what people like - but certainly not limited to - Lord Dunmore, Consider Tiffany and Thomas Hutchinson had in mind long before Karl Marx or Friedrich Engles were born: an America dedicated to an "improved" monarchic oligarchy. The American experiment has nothing to do with "capitalism" - a word invented by Marx in 1872 to denigrate free markets and turn public opinion against the concepts of rugged individualism and self-government. It has been about freedom and self-rule, not just of governments but of one's self - the freedom to value one's own labour and one's own skills. But that time has long past and now, if a business is unpopular or if it does not conform to the zeit geist, then mobs form to destroy it, the people who own it, the people who invest in it, the people who use it's products. Look at Dick's Sporting Goods and Goya Foods; now imagine the directors and management of Vista Outdoors caving as Dick's did or trying to stand against the mobs as Goya did.... Eventually, you get tired of being threatened and harassed in public - while the police stand by impotently and the district attorney's use the power of their offices to further harass you.

I'm sorry but, this is now our reality. It won't be long before one of the investment groups tied to Romney, Bain, Soros, Bloomberg or Steyer takes control of Vista and every other component maker and destroys the market.
 
Hondo 60 said:
Those of us who've been here since before obamanation knew this was coming.
It'll be 1-2 years before powder & primers are back in stock & at reasonable prices.

So what's the new word gonna be?
bidenamation - that period after the general election when powder & primers are suddenly made of unobtaium
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I think the new word is going to be "Kamala'd." As in, "You used to be able to buy as many primers as you could find before all firearms related businesses were Kamala'd to death..."
 
Sniper66 said:
Sheel's in KC had just received a large shipment of Berry's Bullets, but nothing else. Otherwise the shelves were stripped bare. Looked like a Russian grocery store.
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Old Soviet joke...

Ivan goes out on Wednesday to buy food. It doesn't matter what kind, the Commissars make those decisions. He goes to the butcher's shop and stands in line for two hours. As he gets close to the street in front of the shop he hears the loudspeaker, "We have no meat. The butcher shop is closing. However, the poultry shop in midtown reports they have chicken. Now... disperse!" Ivan sprints across town to the poultry shop and is lucky enough to get in line so close he can see the front of the shop. He is overjoyed two hours later when he is only 20th in line! Then he hears the loudspeaker, "We are out of chicken! The poultry shop is closing but, we are told one of the warehouse docks has fish! Now... disperse!" Ivan again sprints as fast as he can to the wharfs where the warehouses are located and is thrilled, huffing and puffing though he is, to see that he is only a block back from the entrance! How lucky! An hour later he is almost to the entrance when he sees the fishmonger walking to the entrance with a bullhorn. "No!" he mumbles, "Not yet! Do not close yet. Khrushchev's government cannot be so incompetent that it runs out fish in the seas!" Behind him, a voice says, "Comrade, I am KGB and if we were still under Comrade Yussef Stalin's government, you would be shot where you stand!" Ivan freezes, hushing himself without turning around and is thankful to the fishmonger when he gets his bag of Smelt. When he gets home, his wife asks, "How are things in the city, now?" "Terrible!" Ivan replies, "the economy is so bad the KGB has run out of bullets!"
 
GeoDudeFlorida said:
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It saddens me greatly to say, your analysis is absolutely correct - for a free market economy. The United States is no longer a free market economy. We are a bureaucratically-regulated, mob-manipulated economy. This is what people like - but certainly not limited to - Lord Dunmore, Consider Tiffany and Thomas Hutchinson had in mind long before Karl Marx or Friedrich Engles were born: an America dedicated to an "improved" monarchic oligarchy. The American experiment has nothing to do with "capitalism" - a word invented by Marx in 1872 to denigrate free markets and turn public opinion against the concepts of rugged individualism and self-government. It has been about freedom and self-rule, not just of governments but of one's self - the freedom to value one's own labour and one's own skills. But that time has long past and now, if a business is unpopular or if it does not conform to the zeit geist, then mobs form to destroy it, the people who own it, the people who invest in it, the people who use it's products. Look at Dick's Sporting Goods and Goya Foods; now imagine the directors and management of Vista Outdoors caving as Dick's did or trying to stand against the mobs as Goya did.... Eventually, you get tired of being threatened and harassed in public - while the police stand by impotently and the district attorney's use the power of their offices to further harass you.

I'm sorry but, this is now our reality. It won't be long before one of the investment groups tied to Romney, Bain, Soros, Bloomberg or Steyer takes control of Vista and every other component maker and destroys the market.
Click to expand...

Everything you say depends totally on our side standing around and doing nothing. Of course, depressive posts like this convince people there is no hope and they just need to sit and let it happen. Almost like saying "don't vote, the election is rigged". I disagree with that mentality. A postitive post would say, This is what they are trying to do. Don't Let Them DO IT!!!
 
HowieG said:
Everything you say depends totally on our side standing around and doing nothing. Of course, depressive posts like this convince people there is no hope and they just need to sit and let it happen. Almost like saying "don't vote, the election is rigged". I disagree with that mentality. A postitive post would say, This is what they are trying to do. Don't Let Them DO IT!!!
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Hopefully, my words will make people angry enough to say, "ENOUGH!" and actually do something.
 
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